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Ciceronian Sicily : the Epigraphic Dimension

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Ciceronian Sicily : the Epigraphic Dimension La Sicile de Cicéron, Regards croisés sur les Verrines, 245-272 CICERONIAN SICILY : THE EPIGRAPHIC DIMENSION Jonathan R.W. PRAG Merton College, Oxford Sicilian epigraphy is neither widely, nor easily studied1. The primary reason for this is the lack of an up-to-date corpus, although several excellent thematic and museum corpora do exist2. This absence contributes to the only partially correct view that Sicily is epigraphically barren3. One basic aim of this paper is therefore to present an overview of the material pertinent to the period of the Republican province, loosely defined as the last three centuries BC. Such an overview is one necessary part of making sense of the Verrines, not least so that we might increase our knowledge of the Sicilian context with which the speeches are so often concerned. In certain respects, this paper is intended as a companion piece to the archaeological overview recently provided by Roger Wilson4. 1. I am most grateful to Sylvie Pittia for the invitation to participate and the efficient organisation of the colloquium and to Julien Dubouloz for spotting my mistakes ; and to the Centre Gustave Glotz for financial assistance. The work presented here has benefitted above all from the earlier support of University College London graduate school. 2. Introduction to Sicilian epigraphy : GULLETTA 1999 ; see further the quinquennial survey articles in Kokalos and the relevant sections of AE, Bull. ép. and SEG. Corpora exist for the museums of Palermo, Termini Imerese and Catania, as well as of the material found on Lipara ; archaic Greek inscriptions have been collected by R. Arena in Iscrizioni greche archaiche di Sicilia e Magna Grecia (1, Pisa, 1994, work is ongoing.) ; dialectical Greek inscriptions in DUBOIS 1989. CIL 10.6976-7493 and IG 14.1-599 remain fundamental, but severely outdated. Phoenicio-Punic epigraphy, some of which is relevant to this period, is mostly collected in AMADASI GUZZO 1967 and 1986. 3. Davies (2003, p. 338) has characterized Syracuse as « intermittently democratic but epigraphically inert ». Without full publication this is hard to quantify. 4. WILSON 2000. 246 Jonathan R.W. Prag This study focuses principally on c. 215 lapidary inscriptions from the Sicilian mainland, which can reasonably be dated to within, or partially within the period of the 3rd –1st cent. BC. Inscriptions on metal will be treated more selectively, although metal was a significant epigraphic support in Sicily. Given the apparently low level of the lapidary habit, the number of surviving texts on metal is considerable (especially in light of metal’s generally low survival rate)5. The Syracusans’ eagerness to honour Cicero with a bronze plaque hints at a preference for this material, although we should also keep in mind the poor quality of much Sicilian stone6. The difficulty lies in determining to what extent the distribution of the surviving sample can be attributed to accidents of survival, or to ancient choices7. My basic question is threefold : what is the relevant epigraphic material, what does it tell us about Ciceronian Sicily and what does it contribute to interpretation of the Verrines ? However, in order to answer these questions, we must first confront some methodological considerations. The underlying question is, what can we learn from a set of epigraphic data – or, how do we write history from epigraphy ? But in this case, this is complicated by the question of how we should relate a set of epigraphic material to a parallel set of literary material, the Verrines : does either set of material take priority ? Is it possible to ask compatible questions of both sets of material ? This is not unique to this case, but the nature of the material gives the problem greater clarity than normal. It is possible to give some sense to these questions by examining the different ways in which we could approach the original task outlined above, namely to survey the epigraphic aspects of Ciceronian Sicily : 1. We can examine the specific references to epigraphic practice in the Verrines (and then go on to compare these with the surviving material). 2. We can search the epigraphic material for specific points of contact with the Verrines : events, people, places which are attested by Cicero and for which the epigraphy provides some sort of support, or further information. Vice versa, we can search the Verrines for specific points of contact or overlap with what we have in the epigraphic material, or use them to elucidate things we find in the epigraphic material. This should be a simultaneous, two-way process ; assigning priority is 5. MANGANARO 2000a has brief comments on the topic ; PRAG 2002 contains a more extensive breakdown of Sicilian epigraphy. 6. Ver. 4.145 ; on Sicilian stone, WILSON 1990, p. 239-240. 7. The most obvious omission in this paper is the varied category of material loosely classed as instrumentum domesticum. This material is much harder to control ; additionally, space limits what can be covered here. La Sicile de Cicéron, Regards croisés sur les Verrines Ciceronian Sicily : The Epigraphic Dimension 247 excessively artificial. It is however worth considering whether the underlying premise involves giving priority to one or the other : it has probably been the more traditional pattern in Ancient History to proceed from the literature to the epigraphy. 3. Similar to approach 2, we can try to use the epigraphic data or the Verrines to provide relevant, parallel, or illustrative material for the other in order to broaden the picture. This is a less narrowly specific activity than approach 2, but the agenda is still determined by whichever « text » we are seeking to elucidate : in other words, we still search the one data set for material of relevance to the other, rather than thinking more widely. 4. We can seek to write the context (i.e. a « history », in the loosest sense, of Sicily in this period) from one or other of these data sets. This poses the fundamental question : is there an essential difference between history written from epigraphy and history written from literature and, if so, how can we integrate the two ? 5. We can ask specific questions, with one or more of these sets of material in mind, for example : what do we know about Roman presence in Sicily ? What evidence do we have for types of labour in Ciceronian Sicily8 ? Necessary to approach 4, if not to approaches 1-3, is a global survey of all the epigraphic material. It seems to me that the first three (ancient references to inscriptions, direct overlap between literature and epigraphy, illustration of one by the other) require a process of trawling for specific instances of data, which is a methodologically distinct process. The final approach (historical questions) entails something in between and is dependent upon neither source specifically. In fact, I think that options 1–3 are typically driven by the literary text(s), option 4 by the epigraphy and option 5 is either independent of both, or alternatively dependent upon a complete grasp of both (and more). It is difficult to find direct discussion of these issues, although there is a parallel debate over the interface between archaeological data and literary sources. The basic subject of epigraphy’s contribution to ancient history (i.e. the types of data which epigraphy can generate and the questions which it can answer) is regularly addressed in manuals on – and introductions to – epigraphy9. Additionally, the presence and use of inscriptions in ancient authors (option 1 above) is frequently 8. RIZZO 1989 ; PINZONE 1999. 9. e.g. ROBERT 1961 ; MILLAR 1983 ; BODEL 2001. One common theme is an insistence on the need to study inscriptions in bulk, or as a series ; ROBERT 1961, p. 473, echoed by e.g. MILLAR 1983, p. 92 and p. 110 ; FINLEY 1985, p. 44 ; CALABI LIMENTANI 1991, p. 112-114. La Sicile de Cicéron, Regards croisés sur les Verrines 248 Jonathan R.W. Prag discussed, as is the interaction of specific inscriptions and specific literary texts (in recent years especially with the publication of various senatorial decrees which overlap with Tacitus’s Annales)10. However, a preliminary discussion can be traced in English scholarship of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries11. In response to the rapid growth of epigraphy as a discipline and the enormous increase in published material which accompanied the development of the great corpora, a debate developed over the value of epigraphy. Opposing emphases upon epigraphy and literature are apparent already in essays by C. T. Newton and B. Jowett. For Newton, epigraphy was primary and should be studied in the same way as the literary texts. By contrast, Jowett, in a notorious essay, with which he prefaced his Thucydides translation, consigned epigraphy to the lesser realm of antiquities (as opposed to history) : inscriptions must be illustrated by literature, are of little independent value and serve merely to confirm, e.g. Thucydides12. The debate is partly foreshadowed by that amongst the humanists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries over the relative weight of literary and epigraphic sources. Epigraphic texts were frequently favoured from the sixteenth century onwards as being in some way of higher authority, or more reliable, than literature13. I. Calabi Limentani distinguishes three ways in which inscriptions tended to be used by historians in this period : firstly as mere ornamentation to work based upon literary texts ; secondly to supplement or elucidate material in the literary texts ; and thirdly as the primary basis for a study, considered either as individual texts or series of texts14. The humanist perspective is echoed, in the discussions which followed the essays of Newton and Jowett, by those who advocated a greater level of authority and / or objectivity for inscribed texts over literary texts.
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